Monday, June 28, 2010

Desert Island Knitting

I should be sleeping right now, and if the Husboy asks I was in bed hours ago. The reason I am not in bed yet is because I had an itch to start something for myself, which turned out to be Hey Teach in Valley Yarns Colrain that I picked up two Stitches ago. The reason that I am blogging instead of casting on is because I was looking for the recommended size 8 needle amongst my circulars, grousing and fretting because I have strictly forbidden myself from buying any needles, and found a 16" (not quite enough for the back) and this:

A relic of my early knitting days when all I wanted to do was knit hats and either couldn't afford or couldn't fathom dpns (most likely a combination of both). What I would do is cut out the middle of the cord and melt the two ends together. I can't even think of how I did the crown at this point.

What a different time it was. I had no contact with the fantastic online knitting community, access to an incredible assortment of terrible knitting books from the 1970's at my public library, and no idea that there was better yarn than the crap I was picking up from the clearance section at JoAnn's. I couldn't even purl at this point, darn it. That little charred nubbin in the middle of that cord symbolizes the frightful place I was in at that point in my life, struggling through and making my own solutions to a lack of resources that did not stop at my knitting. Next to that, my little island looks pretty sweet.

Now here I am, with fabulous yarns languishing in various cubbyholes around the house, a world of patterns at my fingertips, and still no decent size 8 circulars to speak of. I'm going to suck it up, grab my very nice size 7 needle, and enjoy my desert island knitting.